Millions of users rely on Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the central hub for all their customer data. Client-facing teams use it to aggregate and analyze data on prospects to inform and support the execution of their sales and service strategies.

Dynamics is one of the leading CRMs in the market—because of this, third-party enhancements and programs are constantly being built in the pursuit of making the most out of the CRM. One of the most sought-out features that add significant value to Dynamics and its users is click-to-call or click-to-dial.

What is Click-to-Dial?

Click-to-dial is a feature that transforms all phone numbers within the CRM and the browser into links that dial out when clicked, making the calling process seamless, from web to phone. Before the advent of click-to-dial, reps had to manually press on their physical number pads, phones, or their on-screen softphones.

For organizations that need to make hundreds to thousands of calls a day, the seconds used for manual dialling easily add up to hours that could’ve been maximized for business impacting tasks.

Click-to-dial is usually a feature that comes with a more robust Dynamics CRM-phone integration. With a CRM-phone integration, also called computer-telephony integrations or CTI, the benefits of click-to-dial are amplified because the feature is in conjunction with other features that are part of a complete workflow. Client-facing roles in sales, and service benefit from click-to-call in similar and some unique ways.

Click-to-Call for MS Dynamics: A Sales Staple

Click-to-dial is a critical piece of the modern sales workflow.

Day in and out, salespeople whether working in inside sales or field sales, strive to make the most number of meaningful calls. The volume of calls as well as the quality of each one are the crucial to the success of a salesperson.

The typical workflow of sales reps is to pull up lead records on their CRM’s interface, dial or copy and paste the numbers to their softphones, and open their notepads to prepare to take notes. In the last decade, sales acceleration technology has progressed so much making this process a lot smoother for salespeople. Computer-telephony integration (CTI) is the backbone of sales acceleration.

CTI integrates Dynamics with phone systems in the backend, and in the frontend, it supplies salespeople with features that make their workflow more efficient and effective addressing the need to improve both call volume and sales call quality.

One of the key CTI features is click-to-call. Here’s how click-to-call helps sales and service teams.

Improves lead response time

Click-to-call makes it easier for salespeople to call a lead right from the CRM with just a click. Every second is crucial because the likelihood of connecting with the lead is much higher the shorter the lead response time. In high call volume environments, it doesn’t take much for a lead to be pushed to the back as the queue that needs to be qualified grows longer.

A widely-used KPI in sales, lead response time is the average time it takes for a salesperson to call an inbound lead. This metric impacts revenue directly, as shown by numbers across different industries.

In a 2018 study published by the Harvard Business Review, only 10% of b2b companies registered a lead response time of 5 minutes or less. When a lead has to wait longer than 5 minutes for their first interaction, lead qualification drops significantly and your chances to get a lead qualified further drops a drastic 400% when you make contact at 10 minutes.

Allows reps to call in-context

The best Dynamics integrations provide salespeople with features that work hand-in-hand to create a smooth sales workflow. Click-to-call paired with an intuitively designed screenpop can make the difference between a loss and a win.

When a salesperson clicks on a number to call, a screenpop pops on the screen and displays relevant information about the lead without having to open up full CRM records.

In sales, the first few seconds impacts the outcome of each call. Preparing for each call is crucial but it does take time if sales rep has to go into Dynamics, comb through the all the information on a lead, and then create custom notes before dialing out. A good screen pop pulls information needed for the call and displays it in a way that makes it easy for salespeople to provide context for each sales call.

Click to Call for Dynamics: Boost for Service Teams

In large customer service teams, the ability to move quickly from one call to another is one of the top priorities. Alongside other dialing technologies like predictive dialers, click-to-call makes it faster for customer service teams to go through their queues.

Improved service metrics

Customers who have service concerns want to get their issues solved in the fastest way possible. In many situations, customers are promised a callback but never get one. This can drastically impact not only service metrics but a company’s ability to retain customers on the whole.

Customer service agents are often swamped with service tickets. It’s important for them to stay focused on each call but it gets difficult when an agent needs to make hundreds of calls a day. CTI features like click-to-call allow agents to do their job focused on the customer’s concern without distractions. The contextual information displayed through the screen pop help resolve the issues quicker without needing to dig up call history in Dynamics or have the customer repeat the whole (often negative) experience before the actual assistance.

Significant resource savings

Customer service teams often operate in a call center setting. This high headcount, high call volume environment needs a lot of resources to run. Business are always looking for ways to make their customer service floors more efficient and effective. The seconds that click-to-dial save are never as valuable as it is in call centers.

With hundreds to thousands of agents making outbound calls and call transfers, the time savings influence crucial call center functions like workforce management, employee engagement, and call queue management.

Conclusion

Click-to-call is a must-have feature for any team that uses Dynamics and makes calls. It’s a simple yet powerful solution that delivers the most value when availed as part of a full Dynamics CTI. The bottomline is that CTI features including click-to-call gives client-facing reps and agents the time and flexibility to focus on the customer and have better conversations with them. This in turn translates to real business impact. Click-to-dial–and a reliable CRM-phone integration–only makes Microsoft Dynamics better.